Might

How to spell might

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce might

What does might mean?

1. verbUsed to express a possibility or a tentative suggestion about what could happen or be true.
2. nounGreat physical strength, force, or power.

Might in a sentence

• verb

  We might finish the report before the deadline if everyone helps.

• noun

  She pushed the stalled car with all her might until it rolled forward.

• verb

  The weather forecast suggests it might rain later this afternoon.

• noun

  The boxer struck the heavy bag with surprising might.

Where does might come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English 'miht' (also spelled 'meaht'), meaning 'power, strength, or ability', a noun built on the same Germanic root that gave us the verb 'may'. That root carried the basic idea of 'being able to', so the noun naming raw strength and the modal verb expressing possibility grew from one common source. The silent 'gh' in the spelling preserves a sound that was once actually pronounced, a guttural rasp written 'h' in early Germanic and later 'gh' in Middle English, which faded from speech but stubbornly stayed on the page. As a modal verb, 'might' began life as the past tense of 'may' and gradually softened into a marker of tentative possibility. The same buried 'gh' explains why 'might' looks nothing like its homophone 'mite', the tiny creature, whose spelling never carried that lost consonant.

How the word is built

• might (Old English miht: power, strength; also the past-tense/modal form of 'may')

Words that sound like might

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• mite: A minute arachnid that often lives in dust, food, or on animals.